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Coach Allen Monday

Head Coach Dennis Allen spoke with the media Monday about yesterday's game against Atlanta.

On positives from the game: “I think our guys went and competed hard against a good football team in a hostile environment. I think we proved that we’re capable with the best teams in this league. Now, what we have to learn how to do is learn how to finish and win those type of games. That’s what our job is. This is a production business and it’s about winning and losing and we weren’t able to get it done yesterday.”

On WR Darrius Heyward-Bey’s physicality in the game: “Yeah, I thought the one run on third down was an exceptional run that he had. He didn’t show any ill effects of the injury and it was good to see him get back out there and competing.”

On Aaron Curry’s return to practice on Wednesday: “That’s what we anticipate. We anticipate him practicing on Wednesday and we’ll start from there.”

On what Curry is able to do: “Our anticipation is that he’s able to fully participate in practice so we’re going to get him out there and let him run around and see where he’s at and begin the evaluation process to figure out if and when he’s going to be available to be on the roster.”

On if Curry can only play outside or inside too: “He’s used this time to kind of prepare for all positions at the linebacker position so we’ve got a plan in place for him to be able to potentially play in any of those three spots.”

On if Curry’s conditioning is a concern: “I think that’s probably the biggest concern. I think health wise I think he’s going to be okay. It’s the fact of being able to get back into football shape and football condition really in a short period of time because he hadn’t been able to do really any football activity basically since last year for the most part. He was able to do a little something in OTAs, but really it’s been since last year since he’s really been able to play football. That’ll be the biggest thing that he’s got to be able to do.”

On Miles Burris: “I thought he played well. Just like everybody when you come in on Monday, there’s still a lot of things he’s got to get better at, a lot of corrections that we have to get made, but I thought Miles played with some speed, played with some energy, had some production and he continues to improve every day.”

On Burris being on the field for every defensive snap: “I would anticipate moving forward that we would kind of keep that same role for him. Every week we’re going to evaluate and see where we’re at, but I thought he did enough yesterday in the game to earn the right to be back out there again in nickel situations.”

On Burris improving in coverage situations: “He’s getting a lot better at it. Again, he’s still got a lot of things he has to get corrected. Every day is a new day and every day he sees a little something different. The thing I’ve continued to say about Miles since he got here is he eliminates the repeat mistakes. He’s not a repeat mistake offender. He makes the corrections. He understands football and concepts and he’s able to make adjustments and get things corrected. As long as he continues to do that, he’ll continue to improve.”

On RB Darren McFadden and the run game: “I thought he ran the ball extremely hard. I think hen you go back and you look at it, he had 41 yards rushing that were negated by penalties. So we all wish we could take certain things back, but if we don’t have the two penalties there, he’s up over 100 yards for the game and I think we rush for over 200 yards overall on the game. So I was pleased w3ith the way he ran the ball. He ran the ball extremely hard and there’s still a lot of adjustments we have to make and some things we’ve got to do because there’s more meat left on the bone there.”

On the effort coming out of the bye week: “I was happy with the effort; I wasn’t happy with the outcome.”

On McFadden being more consistent in zone blocking scheme: “Yeah, I think what you saw yesterday is that when we’re able to keep the game in balance and we’re able to run the ball and stay balanced as an offense, that we’re going to be able to run the ball. We’re going to be able to have some explosive gains in the passing game. We’re going to be able to move the ball. We have to do a better job of scoring points, but I think we had 484 yards of offense, but at the end of the day, the game is about scoring points and winning games and that’s what we’ve got to find a way to do better.”

On G Mike Brisiel: “He had a concussion. He was doing part of the testing this morning. I haven’t gotten an update since then so I don’t know how the testing went this morning.”

On any other game injuries: “Nobody else of any type of significance. I think most of it is just your normal bumps and bruises from a post-game.”

On DB Michael Huff and the secondary and their three interceptions: “That was big. It was big for the confidence of the group. I think our secondary, they’re beginning to learn how to play together. Some of the moving parts are kind of settling in a little bit more. I thought Michael Huff had his best game as a corner. Obviously he’s getting more comfortable out there at that position. That’s probably as good a group of wide receivers as we’ll have to play this year so for him to go out and play the way that he did in that game was really a positive sign. And we’ve talked about it, pass rush and pass coverage work together. We were able to get more pressure on the quarterback. I think we had 17 hits on the quarterback in the game. We were able to affect the quarterback a little bit more. And the interceptions came with it so those two things work together.”

On DL Andre Carter: “Still a little rusty, but it was good to get him out there. He played 25 snaps in the game and he did some good things, but also he’s still a little bit rusty. Every day he gets an opportunity to get out there and practice and every game he gets a chance to get out there, he’ll get better and better. I think his presence, his veteran leadership, is good for our team.”